How to Help Your Child Deal With Bullying
If your child isn’t enjoying school, it may because he’s being bullied. When you find out a child is being bullied, you wish you could take their place. However, all you can do is give your child the tools they need to stop it from happening. As much as parents would love to wrap their children […]
We Need a New Approach to Bullying
Our anti-bullying programs aren’t working. Kids continue to be bullied in school and elsewhere, and ignoring it or walking away often makes it worse. The boys I see in my practice who are bullied tell me, “I just deal with it. There’s nothing anyone can do…” It all happens so quickly. Teachers aren’t seeing it, […]
A New View on Boys & Fighting
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am not a boy, and I’ve never been a boy. I write from the perspective of a mom of four boys, from the perspective of a mom who sees and understands and is sympathetic to the challenges boys face in today’s society. It was my boys (and […]
Bullying, Hypermasculinity & Warrior Culture
Shame is at the heart of the issue. As men, we create so much misery and oppression because we fail to deal with our own grief, anger, and confusion. In a culture where fatherlessness is rampant, I meet so many adolescent males who are constantly bombarded by pathological messages about what it means to be […]
Should Boys Fight Back?
About a week and a half ago, I wrote this: Are we, the adults, perhaps unintentionally contributing to school shootings by restricting all forms of physical fighting? Would letting kids solve problems physically, at times, keep things from simmering to the extent that they explode in a hail of bullets? And then I came home […]
Boys, School Shootings & Bullying
My heart hurts. I haven’t even finished processing the fact that a 12-year-old boy in Nevada shot two other boys and killed a teacher at school earlier this week. So many thoughts weigh heavily on my mind– another school shooting; boys, again, at the center — as I struggle to make sense of what’s happening, […]
Boys, Bullying & Guns
The 16-year-old California boy shot a classmate who allegedly bullied him. The main story line — boy brings gun to school and shoots — is, sadly, not a new one. We have seen and heard this story before, far too many times. And whatever your stance is on guns, parenting, boys, education or bullying, I […]
Bullies & the Bus Monitor
Photo by bsabarnowl via Flickr Have you seen the video of middle school kids tormenting their 60-some-year-old bus monitor? The story of Karen, the bus monitor, and her 10-minute verbal assault has gone viral. Scores of sympathetic people have raised over $140,000 to send Karen on a vacation, and national news outlets are interviewing Karen […]
Boys & Bullying, Take 2
I was bullied as a child and no one ever told me that I had a RIGHT to my well-being and I learned to “take it.” As a result, I allowed people to push me around and I became a frightened, timid, individual until I reached my mid-30s… What kind of mixed messages are we, […]
Boys & Bullying, Take 2
I was bullied as a child and no one ever told me that I had a RIGHT to my well-being and I learned to “take it.” As a result, I allowed people to push me around and I became a frightened, timid, individual until I reached my mid-30s… What kind of mixed messages are we, […]